Ghost Story
by Mythica
Summary: Set between the Eve Wars and Endless Waltz. We all know Zechs survived the Libra incident, but what goes through a soldier's head after the battle is finished?


Ghost Story AN: For once I think I have avoided sap while being satisfactory to the 6x9 shippers. So here it   
is, only the second songfic I have ever done, from Zechs' point of view set between the series and   
E.W. Please forgive any dates or events errors, I wrote most of this over a span of months, in   
half hour bits right before sleeping. You all know what it can do to a story. >. Anywayz, enjoy   
and remember all comments criticisms are greatly appreciated. 

** Ghost Story**   
_ I watch the western sky_   
_ The sun is sinking_   
_ The geese are flying south_   
_ It sets me thinking._

I've been a fool. And I was too blind to know it until now. The regret crashes down on   
me in wave after wave, a nauseating rhythm. Regret for all my mistakes, all my shortcomings.   
Although during the war I was too caught up to think I'd done anything wrong. I was always   
fighting for someone else's ideals. Treize's, Quinze's. The Lightning Count's. Never mine. So   
that adds another charge to the list: I've also been a coward. I hid from my sister, I watched her   
suffer. I had to hide my bloodstained hands from her, behind that wretched mask. What an   
excuse. It sounds so tired on my tongue now, as I yell it to the expanse of trees around me. The   
sound of my own voice. Its so irrelevant. At least now. Once there were people who hung on   
my every word. And one of them actually listened. Her face forms in the flames of my small fire.   
Not smiling. She went through too much to ever want to smile. I wonder where she is now.   
Maybe she is even smiling, now that the hard times are over. The face hovering in the fire   
contorts as I close my eyes. Her smile. I can barely think. 

_I did not miss you much_   
_ I did not suffer_   
_ What did not kill me_   
_ Just made me tougher._

Thankfully the fire crackles and I can open my eyes again. What is this I feel when I think   
of her, that renders me so immovable? I almost feel helpless. Sad. It is not that stupid, child's   
love I dared to feel for her in the past. It must be regret again. I cover my face, elbows on my   
knees. The last time I saw her I.... Oh gods. I almost killed her. Another wave of nausea hits   
me. I think my stomach wants to eat itself, and then the rest of me. I don't blame it. And Noin   
would probably want to shoot me if she somehow saw me again. After I was so cold, so evil   
even... I don't have to worry though. I'm never going to see her again. No, I think I'll just live   
out my life here in some nameless corner of Cinq. It's fitting. I once belonged in this kingdom as   
a prince, now I only belong as a refugee. So be it. It is an existence. There is no one to be   
forced to kill, no one to kill me here. So I can live, tempered by the war, alone. Just alone. Yet   
the word hardly begins to describe the situation. 

_ I feel the winter come_   
_ His icy sinews_   
_ Now in the firelight_   
_ The case continues._

It's not just that I nearly died falling through the atmosphere that makes me so alone. It's   
not the fact that no one knows I'm alive. It's that I drove them all away; with my words and my   
actions. It is my own fault. The words hiss at me from the surrounding trees, rain down from the   
sky and smoke from the fire. Its light glares at me like a judge on a stand. I must own up,   
confess everything to my campsite court. I can just imagine the pitiful testimony. Yes, your   
honor, I admit. I sentenced my best friend to death, I nearly killed my sister for trying to bring me   
to my senses, and I almost destroyed Noin in one shot. Who was she? A friend, a comrade in   
arms, a confidante, and so many more things I cannot place. My teeth grind as I grip the ground   
in front of my fiery accuser. The soft soil is cool under my tense fingers, I can feel my pulse   
through the pressure. A pulse, just the tiniest movement to keep a man alive. So little an action   
to make it stop. How many times have I nearly died? And how many times did I die?   
Once, on earth, at Treize's command. That killed the vengeance vow of Zechs Marquise,   
Lightning Count. Twice, when Libra was completed, destroying the pacifist prince Milliardo   
Peacecraft. A cold winter on earth, and an even colder time in space. 

_Another night in court_   
_ The same old trial_   
_ The same old questions asked_   
_ The same denial._

So who lives now? In all truth I have no name for myself. Who am I then? For without a   
name there is no knowing. I am not Milliardo, the name drowns in the blood of its kills. I deny it,   
and the heavy ideals borne upon it. And Zechs, the revenge driven warrior with no past or future?   
Never can I pick up the slimy title again. Besides, I have a past. A past in which I ravaged my   
surroundings, rejected all those close to me, then cheated a deserved death to live out this future:   
One of contemplation of myself and my lonely days to come. There. My history and my future,   
disown them as I may. Yet the concept draws my eyelids shut in weariness. Why? Have I really   
sentenced myself to this much? I clutch my forehead like a madman warding off stray voices in   
his head. Deny, deny.... Repent, repent. Voiceless, yet screeching spirits surround my head.   
They leer and me, flicker as the wind shifts in my hair, bringing smoke into my face. The spirits   
transfigure with a sting of smoke and tears in my eyes, and suddenly I see them. 

_ What was I missing then?_   
_ That whole December_   
_ I give my usual lie_   
_ I don't remember._

They do not speak, eyes closed and tranquil. Suspended, as if waiting for a spark, a   
command from my memory to make them move in a replica of what was. Four of them. Treize,   
never to move in an earthly realm again. My dear Relena, seemingly slumbering, dreaming of a   
world where her ideals are true. Quinze, perhaps dead by now, waving a glorious victory banner   
in his mind. And Noin, closed lids possibly blinking back tears. They all ask one question,   
without words. /Why?/ I rub the smoke in my eyes, and the faces flicker out like the end of a   
transmission. Over and out. Farewell. I may never see any of them again, except as suspended   
beings of a tired mind. Simply because I hurt them. They know it; I know it. The war hurt us all.   
There is your answer, you haunts! My own voice startles me, with all the images in my head I   
forget the silence of my ramshackle camp.   
They appear again. /Why?/ This time the lips move, out of sync with a cracked chorus of   
voices across the trees. Why what?! I scream back. They let one face do the talking. Noin   
opens her dark eyes, peering out at me across time and space. The voice is still disjoint with her   
moving lips, and still I have no answer to her question. Strange, it doesn't even sound like her.   
/Libra, Quinze, Peacemillion, Epyon --Why, Zechs?-- One, two, three, four, five, six shots   
fired. Six of your best friend's warriors dead. Seven, eight, nine. A glancing blow to Wing Zero   
-- Why, Zechs?--/ With only the starry sky above me as a backdrop to her face, she stands and   
waits. Waits, while my hands clench, bile rises and scenes explode in my memory; all intermingled   
with her voice. More, more; Leos explode /Why, Zechs?/ My best friend dies, a soldier weeps   
/Why, Zechs?/ Earth shudders under shooting stars /Why, Zechs? Why? Why?/ Noin no longer   
pleads a response, only taunts me with a question I cannot answer to her. She must never know   
my answer.   
_ Another winter comes_   
_ His icy fingers creep_   
_ Into these bones of mine_   
_ These memories never sleep._   
_ And all these differences_

Stiffly I lay down by the fire and close my eyes. But instead of sleep, more violent images   
of my past bear down upon me. Never will I be free from them. There is no one else for them to   
taunt. The blame is entirely mine. In any other case, there is room forgiveness, but not in mine.   
Maybe I did too much, maybe no one will forgive me. But however it turns out, the only   
forgiving to me done is by me, of myself. And I can't. I just can't. I think of them and become   
nauseous at how much I put them through. The damn spirits about my head seem to speak like a   
superior, always taunting and correcting, pointing out enough to make me feel stupid. /You don't   
forgive yourself in the place of them not forgiving you./ Not true! I whine, like a small child.   
Treize would forgive me, he understood the depth of the war, but I don't want him to. He was   
my friend, I did him wrong. Relena could forgive a brother gone crazy, but she already must   
forgive the hate and wrongdoings of her own people. Noin, she.... she wouldn't forgive me. My   
mental superior is correct. She would only ask me why. A question I can't answer, not truly.   
Not after sharing so much with her, as the best of friends and most steadfast of comrades, after   
the favors done and secrets kept. 

_ A cloak I borrowed_   
_ We kept our distances_   
_ Why should it follow that_   
_ I must have loved you?_

She hid me from myself like a fugitive, or a madman escaping his prison. And the next   
day it was back to working for the top, side by side but still apart. Perfect soldier decorum, never   
too close for safety and never too far for comfort. Words for each occasion, whatever could   
happen. I have helped her, she I. Yet she never came too close, no matter how much I wished   
she would. She knew more about me than any other person alive. I knew all of her past. It was   
even, trust and trust. And soon I started to see something more in her, that I tried to deny. And   
when it came to Libra and Epyon and the final battle, I felt I had to protect her. Close to me was   
dangerous. So I ran from her. And when she tried to stop me, pull me back, I somehow thought   
she would get hurt even more than me. I should have known I could only insult her and hurt her   
pride by saying that. And when I went crazy, trying to keep her away was dangerous. I always   
had trouble with underestimating Noin's loyalties and how far she would go for any conviction.   
And even when she held me to ease my fears and settle my thoughts, she didn't know my one   
loyalty was to her. 

_ What us the force that binds the stars?_   
_ I wore this mask to hide my scars_   
_ What is the power that pulls the tide?_   
_ Never could find a place to hide_

Space had always called to her, and the war in it was no matter. She only wanted to be in   
the wideness, the emptiness where no one could stake a claim and take prisoners. Space pulled   
me for different reasons. I knew space was where glory hid, for those willing to take it. But   
when I made the mistake of Epyon, space became a place waiting for an all out massacre to me.   
And earth became the evil one, going furtively about in its horrible deeds. So the one needed a   
war, the other needed to die. Stuck between, I chose to step from myself. God, even on Libra I   
wore a mask. A mask so not to see what went on right in front of me that should have changed   
me, and another mask to hide how much I had done wrong, all the still-fresh scars and names   
from past killings. Funny, I hid my past while creating even more bloody times to add to it. And   
when I was done, I ran like hell. No place to hide. 

_ What moves the earth around the sun?_   
_ What could I do but run and run and run?_   
_ Afraid to love, afraid to fail_   
_ A mast without a sail_

I was afraid. Wreaking havoc only brings out one's weaknesses. What else was there for   
me to do but run? After I almost destroyed Noin, I saw how dangerous it was, what I felt for her.   
Either one of us could get killed any day. If I made one wrong move, I could have died. One bit   
of Zero system in the right place, and she'd have been dead too. I was deathly afraid. Those   
closest to me were in danger. So I sought to put them away from me, doing things I never really   
meant to do. 

_The moon's a fingernail_   
_ And slowly sinking_   
_ Another day begins_   
_ And now I'm thinking_

I saw my own weaknesses and ran. I feared my feelings for another person because they   
could get killed. I drove away those close to me thinking they would be out of danger. And I   
blame myself for all of it – wait, that's not right... I cannot forgive myself for my own deeds, and   
so I am forever condemned... Oh god. My temples throb as I look to the fire once again, the   
flames burning into my memory this painful admission to myself. I need them to forgive me. I   
need it or I'll just go on endlessly, pointlessly. How can I deny it any longer? Treize, I hope you   
forgive me, because I am forever your friend. Relena, kin hardly means anything now that I have   
shed so much blood, but your heart is pure, please take my apology.   
Noin, I....   
My eyes close and an alien smile reaches my lips. What's the use of dictating to a shabby   
campsite what should be said to a person? One person. Noin. I must say this to her. I need her   
forgiveness in order to live. Would she understand that? Not until I explained why. And it's   
because I love her. God, how I love her. My smile doesn't seem so alien. Her face, her voice,   
enough to make me happy forever. 

_ That this indifference_   
_ Was my invention_   
_ When everything I did_   
_ Sought your attention_

Her drive, enough to make me number one, her hope enough to drive me to tears. Her   
determination was enough to make me hope. And loving her made me determined. Everything I   
did was because of her. She helped me, healed me. I detest now even thinking of how I treated   
her, so coldly, as if she had ever done anything wrong. 

_ You were my compass star_   
_ You were my measure_   
_ You were a pirate's map_   
_ Of buried treasure_

I always knew she was right. About battles, about the war as a whole. About Cinq, and   
the Gundam pilots. She had a sense for these things, the same way she had a sense for outer   
space. Always she reached out for the right things, making the right allies and being strong to see   
the entire thing through. The statistics said I was number one, but I learned from the best. And   
my best friend. The true winner in me. 

_ If this was all correct_   
_ The last thing I'd expect_   
_ The prosecution rests_   
_ It's time that I confessed_

The winner of my heart..... Your honor, I can explain Noin now. She was my friend, my   
comrade, and the woman I love. Your honor, I have to find her. She doesn't know. You cannot   
sentence me to death just yet, not until she knows. 

_ I must have loved you_   
She must know.   
_ I must have loved you._

~~   
Alright, I'm done. Please review. I need the feedback, specially now that Kalen thinks I'm a sap.....-_- j/k. She's awesome, in fact. Nevertheless, if you have a minute please put in a line. Thanks!   
~Mythica   
  



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